Cabinet Office
Publishing date: [Published June 2003]
The government has set a target of all services being available online by 2005, with key services achieving high levels of use. For local authorities, this means providing electronic information and where appropriate transactions for the over 700 different services that are provided by different levels of local government.
Year 2 Implementing e-Government Statements (IEG2s) were submitted by all local authorities in October 2002. These self-assessments showed that 34% of services were available electronically by March 2002. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) expects the percentage of available services to reach:
£675 million of capital investment is being made available up to 2005/06 to help local authorities and partnerships meet their plans. This includes funding for a successful Pathfinder project on Accessible and Personalised Local Authority Websites (APLAWS – www.aplaws.org) and an ongoing National Project on Personalised Local Service Websites (www.localegov.gov.uk).
www.aplaws.org [External link]
www.localegov.gov.uk [external link]
This document is aimed at providing a best practice framework for guidance on the development and management of UK local government websites. As such it is primarily aimed at senior managers and web management teams in local government authorities. While the advice given in this paper may be of interest to local government in the devolved administrations, this framework concerns local government in England only.
The framework is part of the national Guidelines for UK government websites and builds on existing guidelines and frameworks, in particular linking to another part of the Guidelines – the Illustrated handbook for web management teams. The latter contains detailed practical advice, free downloadable code and working tools, including checklists.
This document also supports the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s ‘national strategy for local e-government’ (http://www.localegov.gov.uk) which sets out the vision, priorities and practical steps which will enable comprehensive local government web systems to be put in place by 2005.
In providing website guidance to local authorities it outlines ten key best practice guidelines for UK local government websites. These ten guidelines set the website in a broader context of policy, and clarify the kinds of tasks that need to be planned and considered in website development and management. A separate section is also included which discusses how best to work with the existing government infrastructure.
Appendix A lists the framework’s authors and those who participated in its drafting.